The current state-of-the art technology for CO2 capture at scale is amine scrubbing, a chemical absorption-based technology. Another option for CO2 capture is an adsorption-based technology, where CO2 is captured and separated by solid sorbents. Current adsorption-based technologies for CO2 capture employ zeolites and metal-organic frameworks that have difficulty in selectively removing CO2 from water in a flue gas stream. A challenge of sorbents such as zeolites and metal-organic frameworks is that they are based on a physical adsorption mechanism rather than a chemical adsorption mechanism, by which CO2 is captured. In a physical adsorption-based mechanism, water can be preferentially adsorbed over CO2 so that adsorption-based technologies relying on physical adsorption can require an additional operation to separate water from CO2, and a resulting percentage of CO2 captured is compromised as well.
It is against this background that a need arose to develop the embodiments described herein.